


Touch

by Naodrith



Category: Nikita (TV 2010)
Genre: Intimacy, M/M, Touchy-Feely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-15
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2018-04-26 11:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5003218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naodrith/pseuds/Naodrith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts with a pet project of Nikita's, to remind Birkhoff that people care about him through the simplest of measures: touch. Ryan can't say no to her, and anyway, getting closer to Birkhoff turns out to be, well...nice. What could possibly go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic starts during season two, but primarily takes place throughout season three. Though it will eventually be explicit, it isn't yet!

“So Birkhoff really helped us,” Nikita murmured that night - their first night free of Division, free _together_.

“Are we really going to talk about Birkhoff while we’re not wearing anything?” Michael asked, in the teasing way that meant he didn’t really mind.

Stretching slightly, she couldn’t help tensing as headlights swept across the motel room curtains, some latecomer arriving. It would take a lot more than a few hours to believe that they’d made a clean getaway at all, and the fact that Birkhoff had helped them - that they couldn’t have done it without him - was almost the craziest thing of all. “I knew he had it in him,” she said. “I just never counted on him. Do you think he got away?”

“I don’t know if he wanted to,” Michael said softly. “If anyone can cover up their involvement in something like this, it’s Birkhoff.”

“I don’t know which thought is worse,” Nikita mused. “Birkhoff out there on his own, lost and alone, or Birkhoff still stuck inside Division - well, all right, I know which is worse. I wish he’d left with you.”

“And leave his precious computer equipment? Birkhoff would never.”

Except he did, as they discovered several weeks later, and though Nikita made it sound like a joke when she teased him about having no friends and having to rescue ex-enemies to make up for it, in her head the gears were turning. He really did have no friends. Birkhoff had been in Division longer than she had, maybe even longer than Michael, and in prison before then. Hacking was a lonely life, and being on the run even moreso.

One of the many things Amanda had taught her was how to read people, and as the three of them slowly eased into a genuine partnership, Nikita quietly read Birkhoff inside and out. She noticed the way he flinched whenever she so much as put her hand on his shoulder at first. She definitely noticed the small smile he tried so hard to hide, when she ruffled his hair. He was so desperate for approval, it was the saddest thing. No wonder he’d worked for Percy for so long; as terrifying as both Percy and Amanda were, Nikita knew firsthand how good they were at worming their way into the minds - but never hearts, not really - of the people they “saved.” The alternative to Division, for Birkhoff, was the kind of life Nikita had led before she’d found Alex. Plenty of money, and not much else.

Well, she could give him something else.

It was deeply purposeful, after that, a lot of the time. It wasn’t just about cementing their bond For The Team, either - Nikita wasn’t just a moral version of Amanda, dammit. She knew almost nothing about Birkhoff’s past, before he was Shadow Walker, but she did know that ordinary children generally didn’t end up at Division, Michael being one of the few exceptions. Birkhoff had been alone in all the ways that counted for a very long time, and he wasn’t just their partner. He was _family_. Family took care of each other, and Nikita set out to prove it to him without ever saying a word.

At least, not to Birkhoff himself.

Michael gave her the faint smile that said he was absolutely in love with her, and invited Birkhoff to start sparring with him again.

Alex rolled her eyes, but she started going in for companionable shoulder nudges whenever she leaned over the computer beside him to look at the monitor.

Nikita herself, of course, was there for Birkhoff all the time, with the hair-ruffles and the half-hugs and the caretaking, always careful not to push it too far, not to startle him away. He didn’t even really seem to notice the touching as being unusual, which was good, because to her mind, it shouldn’t _be_ unusual - it should just be the way people related to one another.

“How’s your hand?” she asked one morning, reaching out to lace her fingers with his after breakfast, turning his palm over so she could examine the thin bones under his skin, and she knew she’d made progress because he didn’t even squirm.

“It’s fine,” he said. “That surgeon buddy of yours did a great job, it doesn’t even hurt.”

“Maybe we should still schedule an appointment - you took the splint off way too early, and then you had to go and punch Percy.”

“Well, I needed my hand,” he protested. “And I _really_ needed to punch Percy. Would you rather we all be dead because I wasn’t operating at maximum efficiency?”

“I love when you talk about yourself like you’re a robot,” Alex said, nudging his shoulder as she passed by to put the orange juice away. “Oh, my God, there’s more of this Fueler crap in here. I swear to God, it just appears out of nowhere. This isn’t even your house, it’s Ryan’s. How are you still alive?”

Nikita grinned and rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand before she let him go. “Well, if you’re sure it’s better,” she said.

“Quit nursemaiding me already,” he said. “It was weeks ago. I’ve been arrested since then. I’ve practically been blown up since then.”

Birkhoff headed to his computer setup, and Nikita went to join Ryan on the couch, where he was idly going through old newspapers. After a minute he looked up and said, low, “So, I don’t mean to pry or anything, but…”

“But?” she prompted. “Come on, Ryan, you can ask me anything.”

“You’re just so…” He gave her an uncomfortable grin. “Sorry, it’s really not any of my business, you just seem to be so close to Birkhoff. I kind of wouldn’t have thought…”

Ryan Fletcher, smartest analyst the CIA had ever known, Nikita thought, amused. Pulling one leg up onto the couch, she laced her arms around her knee and watched Michael pass by, briefly setting his hand on Birkhoff’s shoulder as he leaned over to murmur something to him. “He’s a great guy,” she said. “And people don’t touch him very much, or didn’t, before. Not with affection.”

“Right,” Ryan said, a little cluelessly. “Like I said, it’s not any of my business.”

Nikita glanced at him. “It could be,” she offered. “It’s kind of a little pet project of mine. Look, Ryan - you were really close with your mother, right?” She put her hand out to squeeze his elbow when his face clouded over. “And when this is over, you’ll be close to her again. It’s only a matter of time, I can promise you that. You’ll have that closeness. Birkhoff doesn’t have that to look forward to. I don’t think he has a family. I know he doesn’t have any friends besides all of us. He’s a little jealous of me and Michael, but it’s not because he wants to be with me - or with Michael,” she added conscientiously. “He needs to be reminded that people care about him, that he is worth something to someone besides just his skills, and frankly, everybody deserves a hug once in awhile.”

“You do a lot more than hug him once in awhile,” Ryan said with a grin. “And you think that...helps?”

“I think he needs it,” she said firmly. “I think everybody does, but especially Birkhoff. So to answer the question you absolutely failed to ask me - it’s not a weird sex thing.”

“That is not what I was going to ask,” Ryan protested.

Nikita smirked and nudged him with her shoulder. “Yeah, it was,” she said. “But I forgive you for prying. Anyway, I know Birkhoff can be a little hard to take sometimes, but be nice to him, okay? He’ll reward you for it, in his own way.”

*

Ryan started small.

Of course he started small. It wasn’t like he had a preexisting relationship with Birkhoff the way Michael did, and it was socially unacceptable for two guys to touch, anyway. The first time he tried it, it was awkward and stiff, patting Birkhoff’s shoulder without letting the contact last, telling him, “Good work with the satellite.”

“Thanks, man,” Birkhoff said, giving him a look that was half-curious and half-baffled. Ryan hastily retreated. Maybe he’d overplayed his hand.

Nikita grinned at him from across the room, where she was counting bullets into a bag, and curved her thumb and forefinger into the “a-okay” sign.

The second time was a couple days later, when he was standing in front of what Nikita fondly called his “wall of crazy,” trying to piece together any further bits of information, trying to discern the signal from the noise. It was slightly distracting that Birkhoff was on the other side of the room playing some kind of video game, but Ryan tuned him out so successfully that he jumped a mile when Birkhoff said, “Dude, you need to chill out.”

“What?” Ryan asked, turning toward him.

“You’ve been staring at the same spot for like, five minutes,” Birkhoff said, “and you look like you’re about to snap a muscle or something. Why are you so tense all the time?”

Ryan cracked a smile at that. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Because we’ve been pitted against an intelligent, dangerous enemy with nigh-infinite resources?”

Birkhoff waved a hand irritably, the lamplight glinting off his rings. “Yeah, yeah, I know all that. Look, come here. Get over here, Fletch, I’m serious.”

Ryan unwillingly went, and stared, dumbfounded, at the controller that was thrust into his hands. “I don’t really play video games.”

“You do now,” Birkhoff said firmly. “Sit down, play a few rounds. It’ll help.”

“I really doubt it.”

“It’ll help,” Birkhoff repeated. “The...a friend of mine showed me. It’s about freeing your mind, dude. Play a few rounds.”

Ryan picked a character in what turned out to be a racing game, and found himself facing an enemy every bit as nasty and determined as the one they faced in real life. Birkhoff had no sympathy for the fact that Ryan had never played anything more complex than Tetris in his life, and after half an hour of being repeatedly run off the road, blown up, and flipped over, Ryan tried to put the controller down. Birkhoff instantly put a hand on his and said, “No, go one more, you were getting the hang of it.”

Ryan frowned, but he agreed, and crowed with delight when he actually got lucky and T-boned Birkhoff’s car. “Ha!” he said. “Take _that_!”

“I’m gonna throw a grenade at you,” Birkhoff said, and then, “The sat images from Montreal, they’re bothering you. Why?”

Without thinking about it, Ryan said, “Because I’ve seen images like those before, when I was investigating a...a Division attack…”

Everything realigned, in his brain, and he rose quickly, dropping the controller on the coffee table and all but running to the board to rearrange a couple of pictures. He stepped back and nearly collided with Birkhoff, who had followed him over; without thinking, Ryan turned, grabbed his shoulders, and gave him a friendly shake. “That’s /it/,” he said. “You’re a genius.”

“Nah,” Birkhoff said, beaming at him. “Not me. It’s not my trick.”

Ryan realised what he was doing and let go, and then, remembering what Nikita had said, gave Birkhoff the same kind of companionable nudge Alex often did. “Yeah, well. Thanks for passing it on,” he said. “Does it work with Solitaire, do you think?”

“Nope,” Birkhoff said blandly. “It only works if you get steamrolled by me in GTA, Guitar Hero, or Mortal Kombat. That’s it, I’m sorry. I may not be the particular genius who figured out the trick, but I am absolutely integral to it.”

Ryan grinned at him, and went back to work.

It came as a great surprise when he returned to the safehouse, after Percy’s fall, and Birkhoff greeted him with a hug, clapping him on the back like an old friend. Ryan froze for a second, and then hugged back. “Good to see you again,” he told the hacker. “I suppose you’ve already talked to Nikita?”

“A little bit,” Birkhoff said. “Then she and Michael went off to...well, either to celebrate or commiserate, it’s a little hard to tell with those two.”

Ryan nodded slightly. It didn’t take a genius to know that Nikita wasn’t exactly thrilled about Division remaining open, nor about Ryan taking charge of everything, and it had been a long, long night besides. “So I guess she’s asked you…”

Birkhoff rolled his eyes. “She didn’t have to ask me, man, of course I’m coming back. That place would be a wreck without me.”

Ryan raised an eyebrow. “You think? They seemed to terrorize us just fine for the past year without you.”

Birkhoff gasped theatrically and put a hand over his heart. “Are you _trying_ to hurt me, Ryan Fletcher?” he demanded.

“Oh, always,” Ryan said, and patted him on the shoulder. “Good to have you on board, Birkhoff.”

Two days later, Birkhoff strolled into Ryan’s new office, his eyes on his tablet. The moment he lifted them, he demanded, “What the fuck, Fletch?”

Ryan blinked. “What?”

Birkhoff waved the tablet in an all-encompassing manner. “You cannot bring the wall of crazy to the office,” he said. “How many people have seen this?”

“I don’t know, Nikita? A couple of other - “

“You have to fire those other guys,” Birkhoff said. “And get rid of the wall of crazy.”

“It helps me visualize - “

“I’ve seen you /visualize/ just fine without it,” Birkhoff insisted. “The problem with you, Fletcher, is that you’re so smart it’s scary.”

“Thanks…?”

“So am I,” Birkhoff added conscientiously, which rather put a damper on the unexpected compliment. “But when you are so smart it’s scary, you have to be _real_ careful around the minions. These guys are coming off of Percy and Amanda, buddy. They’re relieved as _hell_ to have a regular old suit in charge, who can be relied on not to fuck with their brains in any way. The last thing you need is for anybody to look at your giant-ass wall of newspaper clippings and think, dear God, we have an unstable conspiracy theorist in our midst.”

“I’m not _unstable_!”

“ _I_ know that! They don’t know that! The wall goes,” Birkhoff said. “I’ll make you a virtual wall of crazy, okay? I can do wonderful things with a touch-screen, you’ll love it.”

Birkhoff was always like this, Ryan thought, a whirlwind of chatter in a badly-dressed package, and he couldn’t help giving a laugh of disbelief. “What?” Birkhoff demanded.

“Sorry,” Ryan said. “It’s just - I kinda expected Nikita to tell me how to do my job. Wasn’t quite prepared for you.”

“Niki couldn’t run Division if she tried,” Birkhoff scoffed. “I could do it in my sleep, and often have. Take my advice, dude. The wall gots to go.”

The wall went.

A week later Birkhoff called Ryan over to his station to look at some traffic camera footage that might have captured a member of the Dirty Thirty. The facial recog wasn’t getting anything conclusive from the angles, and Birkhoff said, “What do you think?”

Ryan squinted between the grainy images from the camera and the ID photo from the Division archives, his fingers just barely brushing Birkhoff’s on the desk. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “The jawline isn’t quite right, see?” It wasn’t until he lifted his hand to point that he realised they’d been touching, and bit his lip, but Birkhoff either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Birkhoff said, leaning back in his chair. “Damn, I really thought we had something there.”

“We’ll get ‘em,” Ryan promised, and went back to what Birkhoff fondly referred to as the bridge, trying not to think about how, when they _did_ get them, he was never going to see Seymour Birkhoff again.

Three weeks into the New Division, Ryan rang the doorbell at Birkhoff’s new place, and had to wait three minutes for the man himself to open the door. Birkhoff shielded his face from the sun with a muffled groan of pain, and said, “Ryan?”

“Birkhoff,” Ryan greeted him. “You haven’t come to work in five days.”

“What? No way.” Birkhoff attempted to simultaneously look at his watch and use the same arm to block the sun from his eyes.

“Five days,” Ryan repeated. “I got worried, so I had Sonya pull up your tracking data. You haven’t actually left the house in all that time. What’s up?”

“ _Now_ you’re acting like the head of Division,” Birkhoff said, and stepped back, giving tacit allowance to Ryan to come in. His new place was similar to the old one - very open-plan, lots of windows. Ryan wondered briefly what the deal was with Birkhoff and windows - weren’t computer geeks supposed to eschew sunlight? Weren’t spies supposed to prefer places that were harder to get into? - but given that Division was underground, he supposed that answered the question. Who wouldn’t pick a place with windows after that? Birkhoff padded across the floor to his computer rig, impressive as usual, and tossed over his shoulder, “I’ve been programming, I lost track of time. I figured somebody would call me when a member of the Dirty Thirty was identified - are you telling me there’s still nothing?”

“Nothing,” Ryan confirmed, wrinkling his nose when he stepped on an empty popcorn bag because it was either that or step on a discarded pile of Fruit by the Foot wrappers. “It’s good to know that you treat your personal space even worse than your work space.”

“I’m thinking about hiring a maid,” Birkhoff said, dropping into his swivel chair and lacing his fingers together. “So, Ryan, what are you doing here?”

“I told you, I was worried about you.”

“Sure, sure,” Birkhoff said. “Except I do have this handy-dandy new tracker implanted in my side, so you knew I wasn’t dead or kidnapped, and you didn’t call first. Aw, Ryan, did you _miss_ me?”

Direct as ever. It was funny, how Birkhoff took such pride in talking circles around everyone else, but was as subtle as a hammer. Ryan rolled his eyes, but there was more than a grain of truth in the assertion and he damn well knew it.

Three weeks, no leads. They’d all known that was likely, of course. Their targets were highly-trained Division agents. The list included some of the most gifted assets Division had on file. Even with Shadownet at their disposal, even with all of their resources bent toward nothing but rooting the rogues out of their hiding places, it was bound to take time. These people were skilled at disappearing. Still, Ryan had rather been counting on at least _one_ of them pulling their heads out of the sand, for the sake of morale. They’d gotten Division on board by promising freedom when the job was done, and the longer there was no progress, the more people grumbled. The techs were exhausted, the field agents were bored, and Ryan had just come from a meeting with President Spencer which hadn’t exactly gone _well_. And on top of that, Birkhoff had taken a day off to work from home after getting into a spat with Sonya and Sammy, and then hadn’t come back.

“I did not _miss_ you,” Ryan said. “In fact, Ops runs more smoothly when you’re not constantly berating the other techs and taking over their workstations.”

“As proven by the fact that they’ve clearly achieved _so much_ without me,” Birkhoff said, waving a hand expansively. “Whereas I’ve written several new algorithms and upgraded _hella_ software, because I have finally been freed of the constraints of the office.”

Ryan could not help it. “What constraints?” he demanded. “You eat and drink whatever the hell you want at your desk, you don’t even _try_ to stick to the dress code, and you steal whatever equipment you need out of storage, off of other people’s desks, and on one occasion, _out of Barnes’s hands_.”

“Is it my fault Barnes is a moron who doesn’t know how to use a tablet?” Birkhoff asked. “He should’ve been canceled years ago - “ Ryan took a deep breath, but Birkhoff seemed to hear himself say it too, and immediately looked away, rummaging around on his desk until he found his phone. A little unsteadily, he said, “I was about to order a pizza, were you planning to stay?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Yeah, okay.”

Later, while they were eating the pizza and watching Jeopardy, Ryan asked, “So, what’s the real reason you’re holed up at home?”

“What is eucalyptus,” Birkhoff said, making a note on the pad of paper he was using to keep track of their respective scores; they were both substantially outplaying all of the actual contestants. “I don’t know, man, it’s just not the same.”

“It’s better,” Ryan pointed out. “Nobody’s getting tortured, nobody’s even risking their lives on missions at this exact moment.”

Birkhoff waved his hand irritably. “No, not that,” he said. “I mean, obviously it’s better having you in charge. It just isn’t the same. Amanda fucked everything up. I used to _live_ on the bridge, although it wasn't the Starship Enterprise back then, me and the other techs, but mostly me. Being out on the floor with everybody…”

Ryan blinked at him. “Do you...wait. You feel like you’re not _special_ anymore?”

“I was _important_ ,” Birkhoff said pathetically.

“But you’re still the head tech,” Ryan said. “You’ve got your own computer setup on the bridge - “

“Yeah, but you keep making me work with all the peons on the floor!”

“Because we’re all in this _together_ , Birkhoff!”

Birkhoff poked the pad of paper with the tip of his pen, hard. “Sure, right,” he said.

Ryan raked his fingers through his hair, utterly baffled. “What is with you?” he asked. “I mean, I get the whole lone wolf hacker thing, but surely even _you_ understand that the more eyes and brains you get on a problem, the faster it gets solved. You can’t possibly _like_ this, hiding out at home and forgoing all human contact for days on end.”

“I have _not_ been forgoing all human contact,” Birkhoff said loftily. “Devon the pizza guy and I have a real connection, and I even reopened my World of Warcraft account.”

“That’s not contact,” Ryan said, and focused on the TV long enough to beat Birkhoff to, “What is Mount Vesuvius?”

Birkhoff dutifully noted the points. “Whatever, Ryan,” he said. “You don’t have to get it, okay? You have my permission not to get it.”

Ryan frowned, and thought about what Nikita had told him, weeks ago. “Okay,” he said. “You want another soda?”

“Sure,” Birkhoff said, and Ryan got up, placing his hand on Birkhoff’s shoulder for leverage and giving it a comforting squeeze.

“Come back to work,” he said. “I didn’t want to say this, but they drive me _crazy_ when you’re not around.”

“Knew it,” Birkhoff muttered, with dark delight.


	2. Chapter 2

It was almost like a game, Ryan reflected, and felt sort of bad for viewing it that way. Nikita and Michael obviously didn’t see it as a game, but then, they were both more openly-affectionate people than he was, odd as it was to perceive Michael that way. Alex, well...Ryan had a feeling Alex viewed it sort of the same way he did.

It was a game, with the goal of making Birkhoff understand, without actually having to say a word, that he was liked and appreciated and valued as a _person_. Ryan probably had the hardest task of anybody who was playing it, too, because it turned out that it was really weird to purposefully touch someone else for platonic reasons, and at least the other three had longstanding Division-based relationships with Birkhoff to fall back on as an excuse. Ryan just...wanted to.

He picked his moments, though. It turned out he could get a lot of mileage out of just putting his hand between Birkhoff’s shoulderblades for balance, when he leaned over him to scan a computer screen. It was easy to fall into the habit of always pairing “Good work” with a clap on the shoulder. Every touch said, or was meant to say, “We’re friends, we’re family, you’re not alone here.”

Of course, familiarity came with weirdness sometimes, like Birkhoff’s fingers skating over the back of his hand for the briefest moment before he snatched a desired tablet out of Ryan’s grip, like Ryan’s hand curling protectively around the nape of Birkhoff’s neck when Birkhoff was frozen, waiting desperately to hear Nikita’s voice on the comms, to learn if she’d survived the latest disaster.

Birkhoff seemed to adjust better to the New Division once they started finding rogue agents to hunt. Ryan suspected it was because once there was an actual crisis at hand, Birkhoff was better able to deride his colleagues. Even Sonya was not exempt from Birkhoff shooing her from her station mid-mission because he thought he could do the job better, though Birkhoff tended to treat her better than he did the rest of the techs, even after their breakup.

Ryan didn’t pry, about the breakup. He figured they'd get back together soon enough anyway.

He was just sitting down to dinner in the cafeteria one night when a voice behind him said, “You do _have_ a place of your own, right?”

Ryan smiled to himself and picked up his fork. “Yes, I do.”

Birkhoff slid onto the bench across from him, drumming his fingers on the table. “Then my only conclusion is that you are an evil robot,” he said. “Come on, Ryan, what’re you doing? We’re dark for the night, no sign of trouble, and you’re _choosing_ to eat instant mashed potatoes and reheated steak in an underground bunker?”

“Robots, evil or otherwise, don’t eat potatoes and steak of any kind,” Ryan said. “Don’t you have _anything_ better to do?”

“I am doing the best thing there is for me to do,” Birkhoff said solemnly. “Rescuing you from yourself. You’re a hot mess, Fletch. You gotta see the sun once in awhile.”

“This is _you_ telling _me_ to see the sun,” Ryan clarified. “ _You_. To _me_.”

“I know,” Birkhoff said, propping his cheek on his knuckles. “What a world, am I right? Look, I know there are children starving in Africa, et cetera, but throw that shit away and come get some Thai food with me. I’ll even pay.”

“You’re damn right you will,” Ryan said. “You’re the millionnaire here.”

“ _Barely_ ,” Birkhoff muttered, but he bounced back up to his feet as soon as Ryan stood up.

Birkhoff must be lonely, Ryan reasoned as they parked the car around the corner and headed for the Thai restaurant. It was a sign of progress that he’d come to Ryan to alleviate it instead of anybody else. Sure, Nikita and Michael were probably together, and Alex and Birkhoff didn’t really seem to get along well, but surely Birkhoff had way more in common with Sonya and the other techs.

Ryan figured it would be hard to find something to talk about in a public place, with work issues completely off the table, but that was Ryan, whose idea of a fun Saturday night was running foreign newspapers through a translation program. Birkhoff’s idea of a fun Saturday night was, apparently, Doctor Who, about which he could talk for days. Ryan was barely qualified to keep up.

“None of the episodes are really lost, you know,” Birkhoff said. “The network’s been holding on to them for decades waiting for the right time to ‘discover’ them.”

“Okay, now who’s the conspiracy theorist at the table?” Ryan asked.

“It’s not a theory! It’s cold, hard fact. I knew a guy back in the day who’d seen ‘em. If you ever feel like sending me on a business trip to England, I would really appreciate it.”

Ryan grinned. “You believe everything your hacker buddies tell you?”

“Dude,” Birkhoff said, shaking a fork at him. “Doctor Who is _sacred_. Ain’t nobody in the biz who would lie to me about _that_. Look, clearly you don’t get it. We’re gonna go home, we’re gonna watch Blink. Then you’ll understand. It’s not strictly speaking the _best_ episode of Doctor Who, but it’s definitely the most accessible, even for someone of your exceptional intellectual talents.”

Ryan agreed, a little helplessly, and half an hour later found himself walking into Birkhoff’s place for the second time. It was at least slightly cleaner now, he noticed immediately, pulling off his coat.

Birkhoff flicked the lights on, and froze.

There was a man sitting on the couch, pointing a gun at them.

“Long time no see, Birkhoff,” the man said.

“Kyle,” Birkhoff said. Ryan wondered where the nearest gun was - he knew Birkhoff kept all kinds of weaponry hidden around his place, out of pure paranoia. Of course, none of it was all that useful during an ambush.

As soon as Birkhoff said the name, though, Ryan wasn’t thinking about hidden weapons - he was thinking about Agent Kyle, one of the Dirty Thirty. Not a name he’d spent a hell of a lot of time worrying about, to be honest. Kyle was an ex-cleaner, sure, and those guys were all real pieces of work, but unlike many of the other names in the rogues gallery, Kyle didn’t have any unique skills or contacts that they knew of. Birkhoff himself, in fact, had diagnosed Kyle during their meetings about the rogue agents as “a pretty decent guy, for an acid-monger.”

Kyle rose, gesturing to Birkhoff’s computer setup with the gun, and said, “I’ll make this real simple for you, Birkhoff. We’re friends, and I don’t want to complicate your life, but I sure as hell will. I want you to use Shadownet to erase me from Division’s systems - all the pictures, all the files, everything.”

“No problem, dude,” Birkhoff said instantly.

Kyle smiled blandly. “And of course, if you try to send any messages, I’ll put a bullet in your friend’s head,” he said.

Ryan winced, but if there was one benefit to the situation, it was that Kyle wasn’t looking at him with anything resembling recognition. As long as he didn’t know he had the head of Division in his clutches, maybe they stood a chance.

“No, man, don’t worry about it, don’t even worry about it,” Birkhoff said. “You think I _want_ them to hurt you? We’re friends.”

Kyle smiled grimly. “And yet, you didn’t erase my files _before_ I asked you to. Not a very proactive friendship, huh?”

Birkhoff slid into his swivel chair and started tapping away, babbling as he did so. “Kyle, it’s not too late to come in. We’re trying to _save_ everybody, I promise. It’s not a trick.”

“Funny,” Kyle said. “That’s just what Amanda said you’d say.”

“You’re working with _that_ bitch?”

“ _Hell_ no. She contacted me, but I told her where she can shove it. All I want is a clean getaway, and _you_ are the only man who can make that happen.”

It took fifteen minutes, but at last Birkhoff leaned back in the chair, glaring at Kyle over the top of his monitors. “Okay,” he said. “It’s done. You can check, if you want. It’s like you never existed. Anything else I can do for you to get you to put the damn gun down? Forged passport, key to a safe deposit box?”

“As a matter of fact,” Kyle said, “there is just _one_ more thing I could use.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “A distraction.”

The gun smacked Ryan in the temple, hard, and he passed out instantly.

*

When Ryan blinked his eyes open, he took a long moment to take stock. There was a dull ache in his left side, a sharper throb in his temple, and he was lying flat on his back on what felt like concrete, which wasn’t comfortable. On the positive side, he was still breathing.

Picking himself up, he pressed his hand to his side with a groan and looked around. The only light came from a bare bulb dangling overhead. There was no sign of a switch - must be outside the room. Except it wasn’t a room. It was a cell - a roomy cell, to be sure, about fifteen feet square, but the heavy steel door with a small barred window spoke volumes.

Birkhoff was sitting against the wall, arms around his knees, and when Ryan moved, the hacker crawled over to him. There was a small, dark spot of blood on Birkhoff’s shirt, low on his abdomen, and Ryan demanded, “He hurt you?”

Birkhoff grinned wryly. “These trackers, man,” he said. “They go in, they come out - I mean, why do we even bother, at this point? You doing okay?”

Ryan couldn’t resist tugging his own shirt up, just to make sure, but yeah, there was the small incision, right over what _had_ been a pale scar where they’d put the tracker in. “Dammit,” he muttered. “Where are we?”

“No fucking idea,” Birkhoff said. “Can you believe that douchebag made me chloroform myself? And I thought we were _friends_.”

“I mean, I’d take a little chloroform over a pistol-whipping any day, personally,” Ryan said, reaching up to gingerly touch his head. The swelling was already palpable, but he basically felt clear-headed. Hopefully, if he was concussed, it wasn’t serious. “So did you get a message to Division?”

Birkhoff shook his head. “Not an overt one, anyway,” he said. “Kyle’s too smart for _that_ to have worked. But Sonya’s on overnight. She’ll probably have noticed the alert on my terminal that I was signed in from home. We just have to hope she’s curious enough to check on what I was doing and realise it’s not normal. And that they’re able to follow our trail to...wherever the fuck this is. I think it’s got to be an abandoned penitentiary. I swear to God, if we’re being haunted right now…”

“So we’re basing our hopes of rescue on _Sonya_ being as big of a snoop as you are?” Ryan asked. “Jesus, Birkhoff, we’re _fucked_.”

“Don’t underestimate that woman,” Birkhoff insisted. “She’s a crafty one.”

Ryan glanced around their cell again. It was nearly empty. Nikita probably could’ve worked wonders with what little they had; there were two cots chained to the wall, each with sheets and pillows, and a pot tucked underneath. Unfortunately, Ryan was _not_ Nikita, and prison escapes were _not_ his forte. In the utter absence of anything that could be hacked, he tended to doubt Birkhoff was going to be much use, either.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Birkhoff said after a moment. “If he comes back, I’ll jump him and you get his gun.”

“And if he doesn’t come back?”

Birkhoff sighed. “I don’t know, Ryan, if he doesn’t come back we’re basically screwed, so let’s operate on the principle that insane rogue agents _always_ come back to gloat.”

As time wore on, with only Birkhoff’s ridiculously oversized watch to tell them how _much_ time had passed, it seemed more and more unlikely that Kyle was coming back. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise that Birkhoff did not handle their incarceration well; he paced back and forth, hands locked behind his back, and occasionally burst out with something like, “Secondary tracker _in the watch_ ,” and “ _Ninja-bladed sneakers_.”

“Can you just sit down?” Ryan asked eventually, from where he was settled on one of the cots. “You’re driving me up a wall.”

“Ugh,” Birkhoff said, and unwillingly dropped down on the other cot, burying his head in his hands. His fingers threaded through golden-brown hair, and after a long moment, he took a deep breath. “I hate prison.”

“Most people hate prison,” Ryan said wryly.

“No, but I really _hate_ prison. Did I ever tell you about how I got to Division?”

Ryan blinked. “No, I don’t think you did.”

Birkhoff let out a hollow laugh and laid down, crossing his arms behind his head. “Well, I got caught,” he said. “I don’t really want to talk about it. I was young and stupid. Anyway, I was just trying to serve my time, but there was this one guard - Locke, can you believe that? A prison guard named Locke. This was one of those real pricks, the kind that gets off on power, on being able to crush the helpless under his heel. He thought we were all ants and he had a giant magnifying glass, basically.”

Ryan’s brow furrowed. “So this guy hurt you?”

“I mean, not just me. He was a jackass to _everybody_. So I’d fuck with him, you know? Every time they were fool enough to let me near a computer, I’d fuck with him. Make sure he tested positive for gonorrhea, stuff like that. He got more random drug tests than anybody else at the prison, that’s for sure. It was awesome. I kinda overplayed my hand eventually, though. Ordered a couple hundred pizzas for the prison using his credit card - there was no way to attribute _that_ to bad luck or clerical error, and the guy knew my reputation, sooo.”

“Birkhoff,” Ryan sighed. It sounded exactly like him, to be fair, but dammit, the guy had to be smarter than to deliberately antagonize people in positions of authority over him. He’d survived Percy and Amanda, after all. “So what happened?”

“Well,” Birkhoff said, idly scratching his toe along the wall, “he came to get me to take me ‘somewhere.’ There’s always places in any prison that don’t have adequate camera coverage - everybody knows about them. That’s how people get away with shit. So I knew what was coming, and I swear I was just planning to _take_ it, spend a few days in the infirmary, move on with my life, but this guy pulls back to hit me and I just - “ He made a comprehensive gesture in the air with his hands. “Anyway, he lost a tooth, so then he was _really_ pissed, and I managed to get my hands on his taser because he wasn’t expecting a skinny little nerd to fight _back_. I ended up in solitary for forty-eight hours, and I was sitting there and I couldn’t sleep, I just kept thinking, they’re gonna kill me when I get out. You don’t hit a guard and get away with it, not unless you’re ganged up, which I never was. I was alone and I was going to die, and three hours before I was due to get out, I hanged myself in my cell.”

Birkhoff must take a perverse pleasure in being the way that he was, Ryan thought, because he gave it just long enough for Ryan’s jaw to drop before he added, “At least, that’s how Roan made it _look_. Woke up in Division, to Amanda. Eventually she took me to see Percy, and Percy said he’d had his eye on me for awhile, but he’d needed to see something _more_ than just hacker skills. Apparently he was impressed that I was willing to fight back. Percy said there was still time to send me back, and I could serve out my sentence - you know, if I survived it. But he also offered me access to cutting-edge technology, the opportunity to break into every secure server on the planet, and he told me...he promised I would never have to sit in a prison cell waiting to die, ever again.”

“So,” Ryan said after a long moment. “Division.”

“Division,” Birkhoff agreed. “Of course, Division was its own kind of prison, but...it was kinda like being ganged up. Nobody there was going to let anything happen to me, as long as I did what I was told. At least, that’s what Percy let me believe.”

There were footsteps in the corridor, and Birkhoff sat up fast; Ryan moved a little slower, not wanting to aggravate his headache anymore. Birkhoff mouthed, “Go for the gun,” as Kyle peered through the window before opening the door.

“Here,” Kyle said, tossing down a couple of MREs and a bottle of water.

“You know,” Birkhoff said, “I saved your life on Operation Death Note. This is a really shitty way to pay a guy back.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “You’re going to be fine. As long as Division is frantically searching for _you_ , they’re not going to be looking for me. I just need another day or two to get my retirement fund, and then I’ll drop your trackers somewhere above ground, okay?”

Birkhoff slipped off the cot and went to poke at the MREs, and Ryan carefully rose as well, doing his best _not_ to look like he was sidling closer. “Ew, chicken,” Birkhoff said. “Anyway, I wish I could believe you, Kyle, but you’re a douchebag, so I kind of _don’t_.”

Kyle clearly wasn’t expecting Birkhoff to spring up off the floor and give him a jab to the solar plexus, but Birkhoff was no match for a cleaner. Ryan dove for the gun holstered at Kyle’s belt just as he was shoving Birkhoff down again; Ryan got an elbow to the throat for his trouble, and choked. Birkhoff must’ve thought there was still an opening, because he lunged again, and Kyle drew the gun - 

The report was deafening in the enclosed space; all the color instantly drained from Birkhoff’s face, and he made a little pained sound in the back of his throat, his legs going out from under him instantly. Kyle cursed and turned the gun on Ryan, no doubt expecting him to charge, but Ryan wasn’t even thinking about trying to fight back. He went to Birkhoff instantly, wheezing, barely cognizant of the heavy cell door swinging shut, the lock clicking into place and trapping them again.

“Birkhoff, hey, hey, stay with me,” he said desperately. The bullet had caught him in the right side, just above his hip; Ryan wasn’t certain enough of anatomy to know if it had torn through organs or just tissue, but it didn’t matter, there was so much blood everywhere, Birkhoff’s hands were already covered in it. “Stay with me,” Ryan commanded again, and reached for the nearer cot, tearing the pillow and sheets off of it. “Move your hands, let me, shh, it’s okay, it’s _fine_ \- “

It wasn’t fine, they had no medical supplies whatsoever. He bunched the sheets up as best he could and pressed them down on the wound, and Birkhoff screamed, his back arching. “Don’t, don’t,” Ryan said, reaching for him instinctively, cupping his cheek. “Shh, don’t - it’s okay, it’s okay, here, can you try to, like - “ He barely managed to drag the pillow under Birkhoff’s head, since Birkhoff was being almost no help, for obvious reasons.

“Ryan,” Birkhoff gasped. “Ryan, hey - Ryan - “

“Shh,” Ryan said, frantically soothing, and brushed a sweaty strand of hair back from Birkhoff’s face. “Deep breaths, okay? Deep breaths. You’re fine. You’re fine.”

“Ryan,” Birkhoff said, urgent, and grabbed for his wrist, his hand slippery with his own blood.

“Don’t worry,” Ryan said. “Don’t worry. I will _not_ let you die here.” He pressed down harder with the sheet, his hand shaking, and Birkhoff gasped, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Birkhoff? Fuck! Birkhoff, don’t…”

Too late. But at least he was still breathing. At least there was that. And maybe, maybe somebody was going to come and get them.

*

Hours passed.

It felt like it took a decade for the bleeding to slow. As soon as he felt like he could step away without the wound gushing again, Ryan got up and walked several circuits of the room, trying to get his hands to stop shaking. He tried the door, leaving blood smeared on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge an inch. Kyle wasn’t going to come back, he thought numbly, and though Kyle _claimed_ he was going to direct Division to them when he was done with his plans, maybe he’d changed his mind now that Division might very well find a corpse.

No. No. Ryan wasn’t going to let that happen.

Kneeling beside Birkhoff again, he pulled the clean sheets off the other cot and tore them up. It took forever to wind the makeshift bandages around the prone Birkhoff’s stomach, but it made Ryan feel better. There was no way he could lever the man onto one of the cots, so he just stayed where he was, fingers tight in his own hair. They only had one bottle of water; he couldn’t even wash his hands clean.

At least the bullet hadn’t come close to piercing Birkhoff’s lung or anything. He breathed shallowly, but without obstruction, and that was a positive. Occasionally he stirred and mumbled something, but Ryan could never make out the words, quite.

The fever came on swiftly and unfairly; Ryan almost preferred the deathly pallor from before, once spots of colour appeared on Birkhoff’s scruffy face. The sweat soaked halfway through the pillow, so Ryan turned it over, hand cradling the back of Birkhoff’s head to keep it from striking the floor while he fumbled around with it. He wished Birkhoff would _wake up_. He needed to drink something, and Ryan didn’t dare waste any of their precious water to drip on his face.

At last Birkhoff opened his glassy eyes; Ryan almost didn’t notice at first, tired beyond measure from his vigil, and when he did, he scrambled closer. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, Birkhoff, it’s me.”

“Ryan,” Birkhoff murmured through chapped lips. “‘s goin’ on?”

“Not much,” Ryan admitted. “Do you think you can sit up? You need to drink something.”

“I will have two margaritas,” Birkhoff said. “Extra salt.”

Ryan cracked a smile that was really more of a grimace, and slipped his arm around Birkhoff’s shoulders to help him up. The wounded sound that Birkhoff made as soon as he moved struck straight to Ryan’s heart, and he bit his lip and uncapped the water. God, he wished he’d taken some kind of first aid class or something. How much was he supposed to allow Birkhoff to drink in one go, especially when their rations were so slim?

In the end he gave Birkhoff half the water before easing him back down onto the pillow, which Ryan fussed at in the absence of anything else to do. “How long was I out?” Birkhoff managed.

“I don’t know, awhile,” Ryan said, glancing at Birkhoff’s watch. Twelve hours. Too long. “You’ve got a fever, and I don’t know what else to do for you.”

“Aw, Ry,” Birkhoff said, reaching out to idly toy with the rolled-up edge of Ryan’s sleeve. “Awww, Ry.”

“What?” Ryan asked.

“Nothin’.” Birkhoff closed his eyes, and Ryan assumed he was asleep again until he said hoarsely, “Remind me...thank Amanda.”

“ _Thank_ her? What for?”

“So lucky. Soooo lucky. Never been shot before, you know, always thought it would be just. The worst. But nope. Not after Amanda. Amanda was the worst. Amanda has given me...always something worse to remember. It’s so…”

Birkhoff sought for words and failed to find them, so Ryan supplied, “Uh, comforting?”

“Comforting,” Birkhoff sighed, and let his hand drop from Ryan’s sleeve.

He slept for awhile again. Ryan allowed himself a sip of water when his dry throat became overbearing, and elected not to open one of the MREs, because he thought it would only make him more thirsty. Hunger was pinching his sides now, and he wondered for awhile if he even knew what day it was, or if more time had passed while he was initially unconscious than he’d thought. There was no point in counting down the hours until possible rescue, because they had no idea if rescue was even coming.

“Niki,” Birkhoff whispered after awhile.

“What?” Ryan asked, stirring. He’d zoned out for awhile; there was a crick in his neck, and he’d taken Birkhoff’s hand, his thumb stroking idly along the man’s palm. Part of Ryan wanted to let go, but he didn’t.

“Niki will come for me,” Birkhoff murmured. He sounded even more dazed and slurred than before; Ryan wasn’t entirely sure Birkhoff was aware of his presence at this point. “Niki always comes back for me. Niki always comes back.”

Ryan managed a small smile at that, and squeezed Birkhoff’s hand. “Yeah,” he whispered. “She always comes back for me too.”

He couldn’t help dozing after that, in and out of consciousness like a man struggling to keep his head above water. When he heard the distant footsteps and voices, he thought it was a dream at first, until a familiar voice cut through the clouds. “Nikita?” he whispered, unable to force the words any louder through his dry throat.

His legs didn’t want to work, badly cramped, and he half-crawled to the door, hauling himself up to the bars. “Nikita!” he tried again.

“I found Ryan!” she called, and then she was there. “Ryan, are you okay? Is Birkhoff - “

Ryan tried to swallow and couldn’t. “He’s been shot. He’s stable, but feverish,” he managed.

“Get me a med kit and a stretcher,” Nikita said, presumably into her comms, “and a bolt cutter to get through this padlock - hold on, Ryan, we’re here.”

It didn’t even occur to him to drink the rest of the water now that rescue was at hand, because Birkhoff _needed_ that water. It wasn’t until Nikita herself pushed another bottle into his hands that he thought to drink it, and he nearly guzzled the whole thing until she put her hand on the bottle to ease it down.

“Ryan,” she said softly, in her heartbroken way, and touched his temple with gentle fingers. He’d all but forgotten about what must be some spectacular bruising there. “Ryan, what happened?”

“It was Agent Kyle,” he said, his voice cracking, not with emotion but with continued thirst. Nikita put her arm around him and tucked her face into the crook of his neck for a long moment, and he didn’t correct her obvious mistake, closing his eyes.

“Niki?” Birkhoff asked hoarsely from where a couple of agents were tending to his wound, ensuring it was safe to move him, and Nikita gave Ryan a pat on the back before she flew to Birkhoff’s side, kneeling down to clasp his hand between hers.

“Here I am, Nerd,” she said. “Here I am. You’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Promise,” Birkhoff echoed, and looked over at Ryan, leaning against the wall, and gave him a smile.


End file.
